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The landing to her right displayed the nu seemed to be in view forever Not like the trip dohere she could daydreaht gradually beyond the outer railing, and held there, taunting in the diled up one plodding and wavering step at a time

Marnes walked beside her, his hand on the inner rail, hers on the outer, the walking stick clanging on the lonely treads between theainst one another It felt as though they’d been away for months, away from their offices, their duties, their cold fale a new sheriff had played out differently than Jahns had iined it would She had dreamed of a return to her youth and had instead found herself haunted by old ghosts She had hoped to find a renewed vigor and instead felt the years of wear in her knees and back What was to be a grand tour of her silo was instead trudged in relative anonymity, and now she wondered if its operation and upkeep even needed her

The world around her was stratified She saw that everview, taking for granted the squeezed juice enjoyed with breakfast The people who lived below and worked the gardens or cleaned anireenery, and fertilizer To thenored until there was a cleaning And then there was the down deep, thegears, the hands-on world of grease-liernails and the musk of toil To these people, the outside world and the food that trickled doere mere rumors and bodily sustenance The point of the silo was for the people to keep thelife, seen it the other way around

Landing fifty-seven appeared through the fog of darkness A young girl sat on the steel grate, her feet tucked up against herself, arms wrapped around her knees, a children’s book in its protective plastic cover held out into the feeble light spilling froirl, as unes The girl never looked up to see as passing the apartradually faded in the darkness as Jahns and Marnes struggled ever upward, exhausted fro footsteps above or below theh for two old friends, two co steps of chipping paint, their ar and every now and then, and very occasionally, brushing together

• • • •

They stayed that night at thethey take his hospitality and Jahns eager to buttress support for yet another sheriff nominated from outside the profession After a cold dinner in near darkness and enough idle banter to satisfy their host and his wife, Jahns retired to the main office where a convertible couch had been made as comfortable as possible, the linens borrowed fro of two-chit soap Marnes had been set up on a cot in the holding cell, which still sotten too carried away after the cleaning

It was ihts went out, they were so dim already Jahns rested on the cot in the darkness, herin her body’s stillness, her feet cra like solid bone, her back tender and in need of stretching Her mind, however, continued to move It drifted back to the weary conversations that had passed the ti

She and Marnes see thethe tenderness of ancient scars, looking for so brittle and broken bodies, across wrinkled and dried-paper skin, and within hearts calloused by law and politics

Donald’s na into the adult bed, forcing wary lovers tolost husband She grieved for the first time in her life for the subsequent decades of solitude What she had forever seen as her calling--this living apart and serving the greater good--now felt more a curse Her life had been taken from her Squeezed into pulp The juice of her efforts and sacrificed years had dripped down through a silo that, just forty levels below her, hardly knew and barely cared

The saddest part of this journey had been this understanding she’d coreat reason for her hike, perhaps even the reason for wanting Juliette as sheriff, was to fall all the way to the down deep, away froether in the crook of a hill as the wind etched away all their wasted youth She had set out to escape Holston, and had instead found him Now she knew, if not the mystery of why all sent out to clean actually did so, why a sad feould dare volunteer for the duty Better to join a ghost than be haunted by them, Jahns no Better no life than an empty one--

The door to the deputy’s office squeaked on a hinge long worn beyond the repair of grease Jahns tried to sit up, to see in the dark, but her muscles were too sore, her eyes too old She wanted to call out, to let her hosts know that she was okay, in need of nothing, but she listened instead

Footsteps came to her, nearly invisible in the worn carpet There were no words, just the creaking of old joints as they approached the bed, the lifting of expensive and fragrant sheets, and an understanding between two living ghosts

Jahns’ breath caught in her chest Her hand groped for a wrist as it clutched her sheets She slid over on the small convertible bed to make room and pulled him down beside her

Marnes wrapped his ar on his side, a leg draped over his, her hands on his neck She felt his ainst her cheek, heard his lips purse and peck the corner of hers

Jahns held his cheeks and burrowed her face into his shoulder She cried, like a schoolchild, like a new shadoho felt lost and afraid in the wilderness of a strange and terrifying job She cried with fear, but that soon drained away It drained like the soreness in her back as his hands rubbed her there It drained until numbness found its place, and then, after what felt like a forever of shuddering sobs, with sensation taking the place of that

Jahns felt alive in her skin She felt the tingle of flesh touching flesh, of just her forearainst his hard ribs, her hands on his shoulder, his hands on her hips And then the tears were so of the lost ti delayed and finally there, arht

She fell asleep like that, exhausted fro kisses, hands interlocking, a whispered word of tenderness and appreciation, and then the depths of sleep pulling her down, the weariness in her joints and bones succu to a slumber she didn’t want but sorely needed She slept with a man in her arms for the first time in decades, and woke to a bed faely full

• • • •

In the , they approached thethe way, not for the exhaustion she feigned, but the dread of this stopover and seeing Bernard, the fear of their trip ever co to an end

The dark and deep shadows cast by the power holiday followed them up, the traffic sparse as most merchants had closed for the silo-wide brownout Juliette, who had stayed behind to oversee the repairs, had warned Jahns of the flickering lights fro illu climb The inconstancy was bothersome

When they reached the thirty-fourth, Jahns felt like they were, in a sense, hoain Back in the real for IT She waited by the railing, leaning on it and her walking stick, while Marnes got the door As it was cracked open, the pale glow of dihts bloo inside It hadn’t been widely publicized, but the reason for the severe power restrictions on other levels was largely due to the exemption IT maintained it possessed in spite of this holiday Bernard had pointed to various clauses in the Pact to support this Juliette had bitched that servers shouldn’t get priority over grow lights, but resigned herself to getting thewhat she could Jahns told Juliette to view this as her first lesson in political compromise Juliette said she saw it as a display of weakness